And...

Writing About Film

Getting
Lost on the Way to Cambodia

Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

Paper for Vietnam and the Cinema class, 1988

Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse
Now is nowhere near the
moral affront that are such films as The Deer
Hunter and The
Green Berets. Despite Coppola’s
hype of Apocalypse Now as “the ultimate Vietnam film,” it
really has very little to do with Vietnam. Rather, Apocalypse Now is
an experiment in sight and sound, a challenge to Coppola’s vision
and his ability to transport the viewer away from his or her conventional
world. For
this reason, classifying the film with the “serious” movies
exemplified by The Deer Hunter, Platoon,
or Full Metal
Jacket seems inappropriate.
The
film’s obvious debt to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is
merely part of its fiction, as it uses the trappings and “atmosphere” of
Vietnam to heighten its cinematic impact. Most of all, Apocalypse Now is
timeless, making no connection with any particular period of Vietnam,
but merely appropriating the war’s chaotic and horrible surface attributes
to create a high-tech fantasy quest. Michael Herr’s narration emerges
as a parody — of itself, or worse, of film noir voiceovers — and
has none of the freshness and honesty of Dispatches.

Further study of
Apocalypse Now, and a closer look at its literary and cinematic
comments, however, prompts some consideration of the film’s message.
By
temporarily ignoring the film’s mythological and literary borrowings,
and instead concentrating on the specifics of its narrative, Coppola’s
film makes a stab at anti-colonial rhetoric, or even a direct condemnation of
America’s involvement in Vietnam. Starting from the opening scene’s
image of U.S. choppers circling over a napalm-flaming forest, and proceeding
through the journey from the air-conditioned U.S. Army trailer to the nightmarish
temple of Kurtz’s Cambodia, Apocalypse Now denounces the morality
of U.S.
third-world intervention. Additionally, it questions America’s “liberal” ideology
of spreading "civilization" to the earth’s four corners, positing
the
extremes of modern technology and uncivilized savagery, implying that neither
is the answer.
Ironically, then, the film uses the surface appearance of the Vietnam War to
create a symbolic parallel with the actual war, thereby emerging not so much
an anti-Vietnam film as an anti-imperialist one.

The USO show and Colonel Kilgore’s
attack on the Vietcong village are highlights
of Apocalypse Now’s anti-colonial, anti-technological ideology.
In the latter scene, the helicopters, sent on their way with trumpet blasts,
and preceded
by the fascist bombast of Wagner, swoop into the peaceful hamlet. While ostensibly
a means of providing a smooth send-off for Willard and his PBR, the attack
is actually a result of Kilgore’s urge to secure the beach for surfing.
This episode of vicious insanity highlights the most disgusting aspects of
American
complacency and decadence. Coppola shoots a good part of the ensuing slaughter
as if from the villagers’ eyes, which is certainly a precedent in films
of this genre: one would be hard-pressed to recall any other film on the war
where parts of the battle were seen from the “enemy’s” eyes.
At worst, the camera take no specific viewpoint, and floats over and above
the action, never focusing on anyone or anything in particular. This rather
effective
camerawork is never used again, however, and, in general, Coppola avoids dealing
with the Vietnamese and contents himself with disparaging the American side.
For instance, no Vietnamese or Cambodian is ever portrayed as a particular
individual, most of whom are shown in states of death, fear, or inscrutable
savagery.

Coppola falters by romanticizing certain aspects of the Vietnamese
and Cambodian
peasant cultures to better contrast the evils of the U.S.’s technological
onslaught. Apocalypse Now’s message is further muted through
Coppola’s
heavy-handed use of Heart of Darkness, the king-fisher myth (which
was supposedly “discovered” halfway
through filming), The Golden Bough, and other sources to carry the
film’s
final third. Through these departures, Coppola obscures the film’s
anti-colonial tone and elevates it to grand-theme cinema. As a late-1970s
production, Coppola
could never have succeeded in blatantly condemning the U.S.’s involvement
in Vietnam, nor may he even have desired to. Coppola wanted to make a Vietnam-era
epic, but he never decided what exactly he wished to say.

Apocalypse Now is jam-packed with exciting and frightening,
often mystifying, special effects, and images of the horror (“The Horror”)
of war. Careful examination of these images, however, reveals them as only
that: images,
without factual basis, presented for their visual and aural effect, but
for the most
part without a moral agenda. The film escapes more severe judgement only
because of its meandering, as it never attempts to genuinely wrestle with
the reality
of Vietnam. For this reason, it escapes the harsh criticism of films such
as The Deer Hunter or Platoon.